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Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,722 posts, read 58,067,115 times
Reputation: 46190
Ever farm?
It is your LIFE and likely for generations before you.
Many have bought their farm 2-3x back from the Gov or the bank.
When you are faced with LOSING it (all) (what your previous generations sweat blood for...) it is pretty traumatic.
Even just relocating a farm takes YRS to rebuild soils, conservation, structures, fences, water systems. Not many of us have time or energy left in us (BTDT 3x).
Often the circumstances are very bitter... not like you are just losing a house or car.
Farmers are pretty tough (having lost a lot of animals, friends, family)
Guardian is one of the last remaining sources of good journalism.
As to the answer to the question why? I loved one of the comments posted to that article on Guardian's website - copied below verbatim:
"Because they live in a racist backwater run by an orange supremacist, have no healthcare, dead-end jobs, no money, lots of debt and no pension?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by branDcalf
I suppose that is a good example of the disconnect many have with those who live and work in rural places in general, and in agriculture specifically.
There are more stressors now than there were even 20 years ago, IMO. I could go on and cite social, regulatory, and financial issues that contribute to that, but it really is too complex for this forum.
Yup, more stressors. Isn't that what you just said?
Which is absolutely right. All across the world. Did you know Ben Franklin advised young men that the best way to get rich was to get a farm, marry a strong woman and have a passel of kids to work the farm? And that was what you could do back then.
But that was no longer even true even by the time that the skyrocketing interest rates created by Reagan's economic policies created the farm depression of 1985.
But long story short - harder and harder - year on year - to make a profit. To keep the land - to keep the life. Farming's too hard - kids don't want to take it over mostly. So many, maybe most, IDK, aren't working to hand it to the kids. How easy is it then, to lose hope? I'd say most people would have lost hope long ago. The agribusiness giants and GMO seeds putting many farmers in a catch-22 of spiraling cost. Yeah, a lot more stressors. Equipment doesn't get any younger, nor does it get any cheaper.
Weather is going crazy from global warming. That doesn't help.
I am seeing a little relief in the locavore and farmer's markets trend. At least around where I live. Local truck farming is actually providing a little income, and meat suppliers are making slightly better profits than they were 10 years ago. It's something. Probably not enough, but it is something.
Yup, more stressors. Isn't that what you just said?
I will disagree about no healthcare, no pension, and it being a dead end job.
Everyone I know has private health insurance, savings for retirement, and likes being their own boss.
Stressors I see include the disinformation campaign against agriculture in pop media and culture. The USDA puts the percentage of farms that are family owned at 97%. Do you hear that number on television (besides RFD-TV). Do you ever hear how healthy pastures provide forage and water for wildlife and great carbon sequestration?
Or the increasing costs. Where one could purchase many farm implements for the income of 5-7 calves, it now takes 20. Property tax increases when suburbs encroach on farmland drives costs up further, making it impossible in some areas to keep the very green spaces that people left the cities for and puts farmers out of business. The estate tax placed on farms/ranches, who, while their gross worth is high, are not worth anything is whittled down to pay that tax. They aren't making any more land, or any more water, and both are becoming more expensive.
I could go on for days. It is hard to trim facts down to palatable snippets for this format.
But, with the racist crack made by the poster whose comment you included in mine, and your attempt to make it a Dem vs Rep issue, I can tell that neither of you have made your living in a rural place in agriculture.
I will disagree about no healthcare, no pension, and it being a dead end job.
Everyone I know has private health insurance, savings for retirement, and likes being their own boss.
They may have it but they are paying through their nose for it and the costs keep rising. Instead of making it easier and cheaper for people to obtain health insurance, they are making it more difficult and more expensive. In addition, most rural areas have poor health coverage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by branDcalf
Stressors I see include the disinformation campaign against agriculture in pop media and culture. The USDA puts the percentage of farms that are family owned at 97%. Do you hear that number on television (besides RFD-TV). Do you ever hear how healthy pastures provide forage and water for wildlife and great carbon sequestration?
Only 2% of the U.S. population farms. That means that most of the 2% have to have large holdings to satisfy demand. - this qualifies them as being large scale farmers or ranchers. Most small holdings operate at a loss (according to USDA as well) and require the wife to have a job in town to support the husband's hobby. Furthermore, do people who have Tyson broilers qualify as farmers? Not in my books but maybe in USDAs?
Quote:
Originally Posted by branDcalf
Or the increasing costs. Where one could purchase many farm implements for the income of 5-7 calves, it now takes 20. Property tax increases when suburbs encroach on farmland drives costs up further, making it impossible in some areas to keep the very green spaces that people left the cities for and puts farmers out of business. The estate tax placed on farms/ranches, who, while their gross worth is high, are not worth anything is whittled down to pay that tax. They aren't making any more land, or any more water, and both are becoming more expensive.
I think a lot of people do not differentiate between farming and ranching - growing zucchini is much different than keeping cows for beef is much different than keeping cows for milk is much different than Tyson owned and run chicken broiler operations is much different than growing hay for livestock is much different than...
Some of the above actually involve healthy pastures, others do not. In most mono-crop "farming" pasture is everything but healthy. One or more years of Round-up ready corn on hundreds and hundreds of acres followed by one or more years of soy, followed by one or more years of barley - where is the soil in this equation? Nowhere. It is constantly doused in fertilizer, herbicide, rinse and repeat. Hay production is no better - sure, looks pretty and green but the method of production does not really ensure long-term viability of the soil. Or the water supply - I would not want to live next to a corn field and draw water from the well near it, for example. You can cite all the pseudo-science put out by Monsanto and their buddies at USDA (doesn't a group of ex-Monsanto and ex-Tyson execs change positions running USDA anyways?) but someone spraying the field to death and then one heavy rain and your water supply is...?
Quote:
Originally Posted by branDcalf
But, with the racist crack made by the poster whose comment you included in mine, and your attempt to make it a Dem vs Rep issue, I can tell that neither of you have made your living in a rural place in agriculture.
I made that remark more as a joke (the orange headed buffoon just makes things worse). Sadly, in reality, the system is geared towards extracting a few more drops of sweat out of the middle class (professionals, farmers) while leaving them in a more difficult position while at the same time making it easier for large corporate entities and people owning them and running these entities to get rich. Not many farmers have off-shore accounts in the Caymans, not many farmers pay themselves $50 million golden parachutes, so on and so on. Most farmers are scraping by year to year. The sad things is that this is not a Dem vs Rep issue, both parties are rotten and have forgotten about the constituents.
What's the suicide rate among American CEOs? Or even the new nerd class that will own the world supposedly?
Guardian is one of the last remaining sources of good journalism.
As to the answer to the question why? I loved one of the comments posted to that article on Guardian's website - copied below verbatim:
"Because they live in a racist backwater run by an orange supremacist, have no healthcare, dead-end jobs, no money, lots of debt and no pension?"
Wow. What a condescending piece of tripe that person wrote and you bothered to regurgitate here.
Farming communities are racist, backwaters...somehow Trump is to blame....? Ugly and divisive garbage.
Also, most the farmers I know have done extremely well financially in recent years. My relative is an agricultural loan officer and in the part of Illinois where he works the farmers have erased debt and were actually complaining about their tax bills in recent years lol.
Basically, that's a really ugly and factually incorrect post with politics thrown in as some sort of bonus on top like a dogs turd on ones lawn.
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